Sleater-Kinney‘s Carrie Brownstein has stated how losing her mother influenced their new album Little Rope. The US rock duo which comprises Brownstein and Corin Tucker, shared details of their 11th album and an upcoming tour in support of it back in October, announced alongside lead single “Hell.”

The track was released following a family tragedy, after Brownstein’s mother and stepfather had been killed in a car crash while on holiday in Italy in 2022. According to a press release, while the album was already in progress, some musical aspects of the songs were influenced with the artist’s grief at the forefront.

Brownstein has now opened up about the personal impact of the sudden loss. “I don’t think there was ever a question that we would stop recording, she told The Guardian. “I really needed to keep going.”

To support and console her through grief, Tucker would send over a chorus or melody for Brownstein to work with, where she “would just sit with it for hours, all day really, re-harmonizing the chords,” adding that it “felt like praying.”

On her journey through navigating the loss, Brownstein shared: “Grief is intangible and you feel so incoherent, right? There is a before and after and you can’t reconcile it. It’s not like a broken leg or something that will heal. It’s just gone.” The artist added that musically, she’s “learned to appreciate the presence” of the guitar in new material.